Published: Jan 13, 2015, 11:23 AM (IST)
Edited: Jan 13, 2015, 11:23 AM (IST)
Indian cricket great Rahul Dravid feels Virat Kohli is an ideal leader around whom India can plan its Test future.
India lost the recently concluded Test series in Australia 0-2, out of which Kohli led India in the first and the last Test. Dravid believes that BCCI can should show faith him in as he has the capability to lead as well as excel individually.
As reported by Cricketcountry.com, Dravid said, “I think it’s early days for Virat. But he’s shown that he can lead. One of the biggest pluses for me was his own performance in this series. Now we know that Virat’s a shoo-in candidate for the captaincy, he’s someone whom Indian cricket can plan long-term with, and that’s what they should do.
“The worst thing would have been, for someone like Virat, who was the obvious successor to MS Dhoni, to have not performed and not been sure of his own place, which was one of the concerns after the tour of England. But that’s not the case.”
Dravid also believes that the current Indian batting line-up possesses the capability to do well in all conditions and the concern stems down to the bowling department which in the recent past has let down the team in overseas conditions.
“The bowling has been a big let-down, and I think if you are not consistently bowling well, if you don’t have world-class bowlers in both pace and spin, then you’re going to slide down the rankings because you’re not going to produce results,” said the 42-year-old former captain.
Dravid said he isn’t a big fan of the rankings and feels that will surely improve as India play their next couple of series in home conditions. For him, the challenge is how the team goes on to do well in overseas conditions.
“I’m not a big one for rankings. Whether we’re seventh or fifth, for me that doesn’t really make a huge difference. We are not going to be playing overseas for a long time, so our rankings will definitely improve. We will perform well in India. We’ve got the batting line-up now, we’ve got some very good spinners who can bowl well in these conditions, so if we were having this conversation in 24 months and we haven’t played a lot overseas, then I might be talking about ‘oh, great, we’re up there in numbers one and two’.”
“So that’s not the point. The point for me is, how well we do when we go overseas from now, and what are the steps that we’re taking to address some of the issues that have become pretty evident over the last 12-14 months.”
